All the Perl that's Practical to Extract and Report

Navigation

The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Without JavaScript enabled, you might want to
use the classic discussion system instead. If you login, you can remember this preference.

If only I had known that that liberals are driven by "wishful thinking" and and "the notion that we can make life on Earth perfect" and "[maybe] we can all have a Star Trek like existence". Gosh, even though I've never met a single liberal who espouses such a view, clearly you, Pudge, the Champion of Truth and Light, have revealed to me the Way. Never again shall I be so shallow as to believe that differences in core values might lead peopl

Agreed that you didn't say "all liberals". My apologies. However, you presented the viewpoint of what describe as "many liberals" and you quite failed to make it clear that this is a minority viewpoint. Instead, you presented a viewpoint that is clearly your own, you mocked it ("Star Trek like existence"?), and used a minority opinion -- one I don't hear -- as a contrast to conservative opinion. You might think it's fair to contrast a minority opinion with what you clearly view as the rational conservat

Agreed that you didn't say "all liberals". My apologies. However, you presented the viewpoint of what describe as "many liberals" and you quite failed to make it clear that this is a minority viewpoint.

Excuse me for not being perfect. I guess my own lack of perfection is part of why I don't believe in the possibility of immanentizing the eschaton.:-) If I had gone deeply into it, I surely would have made that point, but I quickly moved on to another aspect of the topic.

Many conservatives are racist bastards who feel that non-white people are less intelligent than white people and are genetically predisposed to commit crime. Liberals, quite rightly, reject this notion.

One problem with that statement is that I've now lumped all liberals in the same category. I doubt that many liberals would agree with the "many conservatives" viewpoint I present, but I'm sure that some do. However, my statement about conservat

One problem with that statement is that I've now lumped all liberals in the same category. I doubt that many liberals would agree with the "many conservatives" viewpoint I present, but I'm sure that some do.

Yes, but that is not a problem with the statement I made, I believe. Racism and liberalism are not mutually exclusive (although certainly, liberalism in America tends to reject it). But the possibility of "immanentizing the eschaton" is, I b

But why compare non-pervasive ridiculous notions in the first place? Isn’t that an excercise in futility? The fact that someone is liberal or conservative does not make them more or less likely to hold ridiculous views. What changes may be the particular form of crackpottery or the way it it is expressed. But either way, neither conservatives nor liberals (nor anarchists nor people of any other political view) are in any way protected from stupid ideas purely on account of their ideology.

I was asked the question of whether liberalism is driven by wishful thinking. I said for some liberals, it is. I didn't come up with the question, and I answered it truthfully.

The fact that someone is liberal or conservative does not make them more or less likely to hold ridiculous views.

Yes... and?

But either way, neither conservatives nor liberals (nor anarchists nor people of any other political view) are in any way protected from stupid ideas purely on account of their ideology.

Yes... and?

This is the crux of the matter.

It is? How could that be, when no one even remotely implied otherwise?

If you wanted to avoid such criticism, you would have compared a ridiculous liberal notion not against a reasonable conservative one, but against a reasonable liberal one. Changing multiple variables at once makes a comparison worthless unless you are trying to imply that they are correlated.

You are extraordinarily confused. I wasn't making a comparison of ideologies. I wasn't trying to say conservatism is better than liberalism, or my views better than another. Where do you come up with this nonsense?

Again, someone asked a question about whether liberalism is driven by wishful thinking. I said, some liberals are, and I, and others who hold to my ideology, disagree with that. There is nothing remotely wrong or inappropriate with that, in any way whatsoever.

This is why people are correctly jumping at your throat for such a statement, and why they would have been correct to do so even if your statement was further qualified to point out that the liberal view you chose is not pervasive.

Again, someone asked a question about whether liberalism is driven by wishful thinking. I said, some liberals are, and I, and others who hold to my ideology, disagree with that.

Reasonable liberals disgree with that just as much as you and others who hold to your ideology do. Your ideology is irrelevant. Failing to point this out creates the impression that you want to causally relate holding to your ideology to the rejection of wishful thinking.